Somaxon now resting easier

Sleeping pill approved after repeated delays

Dr. Thomas Roth, a sleep specialist at Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan who has consulted for Somaxon, said Silenor’s sleep-maintenance focus gives it an important distinction from many existing sleep drugs.

The reason is that there are complementary systems in the brain that enable people to fall asleep and then to wake up. By working on the system that wakes people up, the drug could help patients who have no problem falling asleep but then wake up frequently, Roth said.

For example, he said elderly patients often fall asleep while watching television but then wake up repeatedly during the night.

“It’s a sleep-maintenance drug, more than a sleep-inducing drug,” Roth said. “For the stressed-out person who can’t get to sleep, this is not going to be the answer.”

Somaxon was founded in 2003 by a handful of consultants and managers from former San Diego companies such as CancerVax and Women First HealthCare. One of the founders was longtime San Diego biotech executive David Hale, now the company’s chairman.

The founders raised money and went looking for a drug already in development that showed promise. They found what would become Silenor — a low-dose version of the antidepressant doxepin — in the lab of Neil B. Cavey at Columbia University in New York.

After its difficult period, the company is already starting to ramp up for a launch of a drug. The head count is up to 11, Pascoe said, with recent hires including a new chief financial officer.

Right now the company is looking for a commercial partner to sell the drug to primary care doctors around the country. The company aims to launch the drug in the second half of the year, and Pascoe said it could then look to acquire complementary drugs in the psychiatry space to develop.

He said perseverance has been key to getting the company where it is today.

“We haven’t been blessed with cash and a lot of other resources,” he said, “so we’ve had to be creative.”